PROPERTY  Op 

i  4  HUGHE§ 


OF  NEW  AND  OLD 


EHOPKJNSON  SMITH 


PROPERTY  OF 

J.  J.  HUGHES 


BLVM 
ENTH 


PROPERTY  OF 

'^  iL  biUGHES 


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C^ •i^^'-^-'Z-     <=**^ 


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CHARCOALS 

OF 

NEW    AND     OLD 

NEW    YORK 


OF       NEW       AND       OLD 


7 


PICTURES  AND  TEXT  BY 
F.  HOPKINSON  SMITH 


T^ll 


5*^-V 


GARDENCITY  NEWYORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
MCMXII 


COPYRIGHT,    I912,    BY 
DOUBLEDAY,     PAGE    &    CO. 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED,    INCLUDING   THAT  OF 

TRANSLATION    INTO    FOREIGN    LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING   THE    SCANDINAVIAN 


IH.I 
IRL 


OC  i^5ft^3>^6 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

NEW  YORK  CITY,  below  its  man-piled  coverings,  is  a  huge 
stone  lizard  sprawled  flat  on  its  beUy,  its  head  erect  at  Spuyten- 
Tuyvel,  its  arms  and  legs  touching  the  two  Rivers,  its  tail 
flopping  the  Battery. 

AU  along  the  spine  and  flanks  of  this  Reptile  of  Gneiss  tormenting 
men  dig  and  bore  and  blast:  driving  tunnels  through  its  vitals;  scoop- 
ing holes  for  sub-cellars  five  floors  under  ground;  running  water  pipes 
and  gas  mains;  puncturing  its  skin  with  hypodermics  of  steam;  weight- 
ing it  with  skyscrapers,  the  dismal  streets  below  dark  as  sunless  ravines; 
plastering  its  sides  with  grass  bordered  by  asphalt  into  which  scraggly 
shrubs  are  stuck  —  and  as  a  crowning  indignity  —  criss-crossing  its 
backbone  with  centipedes  of  steel,  highways  for  endless  puffing  trains 
belching  heat  and  gas. 

This  has  been  going  on  in  constantly  increasing  malevolence  since 
the  Dutch  landed,  and  will  continue  to  go  on  until  three  or  four,  or  per- 
haps six,  brand-new  cities,  each  one  exactly  above  the  other,  are  piled 
on  top  of  the  poor  beast.  What  will  happen  then,  especially  if  it  loses 
all  patience  and  some  fine  morning  gives  an  angry  shiver,  as  would 
an  old  horse  shaking  off  flies,  a  lucky  survivor  near  the  Golden  Gate 
may  know,  but  no  one  questions  that  it  would  be  unpleasant  for  the 
flies. 


INTRODUCTION 

In  the  mean  time  the  sun  shines  on  spider-web  bridges;  lofty 
buildings  with  gold-headed  canes  of  towers;  miles  of  sidewalks  obscured 
by  millions  of  people;  endless  ribbons  of  streets  swarming  with  wheeled 
beetles,  and  countless  acres  of  upturned  ground  scarred  with  the  ruins 
of  the  old  to  make  ready  for  the  new,  while  over,  through,  and  in  it  all 
stir  the  breeze  and  thrill,  the  spirit  and  courage  of  a  Great  City,  made 
great  by  Great  Men  for  other  Great  Men  yet  unborn  to  enjoy. 

In  this  twisted,  seething  mass  stand  quaint  houses  with  hipped 
roofs;  squat  buildings  crouching  close  to  escape  being  trampled  on  — 
some  hugging  the  sides  of  huge  steel  giants  as  if  for  protection;  patches 
of  thread-bare  sod  sighed  over  by  melancholy  trees  guarding  long  for- 
gotten graves;  narrow,  baflled  streets  dodging  in  and  out,  their  tired 
eyes  on  the  river;  stretches  of  wind-swept  spaces  bound  by  sea-walls, 
off  which  the  eager,  busy  tugs  and  statelier  ships  weave  their  way, 
waving  flags  of  white  steam  as  they  pass;  wooden  wharves  choked  with 
queer  shaped  bales  smelling  of  spice,  and  ill-made  boxes  stained  with 
bilge  water,  against  which  lie  black  and  white  monsters  topped  with 
red  funnels,  surmounting  decks  of  steel. 

All  these  in  the  very  chaos  of  their  variety  are  the  spoil  of  the 
painter.     Some  of  them  are  reproduced  in  these  pages. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 


I 

Wall  street 

1 

II 

The  Skyscraper       .          .          .          .          . 

7 

III 

The  Brooklyn  Bridge 

13 

IV 

The  City  Hall         .... 

19 

V 

Castle  Garden  ..... 

25 

VI 

Behind  Shinbone  Alley 

33 

VII 

Elizabeth  Street     .... 

41 

VIII 

Clinton  Court         .... 

47 

IX 

No.  5  West  Twenty-eighth  Street 

55 

X 

The  Little  Church  Around  the  Corner 

63 

XI 

The  Grand  Caiion  of  the  Yellow    . 

69 

XII 

The  Stock  Exchange 

75 

XIII 

The  Upheaval         .... 

83 

XIV 

The  Subway — Bridge  Station 

89 

XV 

Manhattan 

95 

XVI 

Madison  Square      .... 

101 

XVII 

Gansevoort  Market 

107 

XVIII 

Edgar  Allan  Poe's  House  at  Fordham 

115 

XIX 

Jumel  Mansion       .... 

123 

XX 

The  Bronx     ..... 

131 

XXI 

The  Willows  ..... 

.     139 

1  LLUSTRATIONS 


The  Washington  Arch   ( 

Titled 

. 

PAGE 

V 

The  Harbor  (Introduction) 

ix 

Wall  Street    . 

.       5 

The  Skyscraper 

.     11 

The  Brooklyn  Bridge 

.     17 

The  City  Hall 

23 

Castle  Garden 

.     29 

Behind  Shinbone  Alley 

.     37 

Elizabeth  Street 

.     45 

Clinton  Court 

.     51 

No.  5  West  Twenty-eighth  Street   . 

59 

The  Little  Church  Around  the  Corner    . 

.     67 

The  Grand  Cafion  of  the  Yellow     . 

.     73 

The  Stock  Exchange 

.     79 

The  Upheaval         .... 

.     87 

The  Subway— Bridge  Station 

.     93 

Manhattan 

.     99 

Madison  Square      .          .         .         .         . 

.  105 

Gansevoort  Market          .          .          .          . 

111 

Edgar  Allan  Poe's  House  at  Fordham 

119 

The  Jumel  Mansion        .          .          .         . 

.   127 

The  Bronx     ..... 

135 

The  Willows  . 

.   143 

CHARCOALS 

OF 

NEW  AND  OLD 

NEW  YORK 


WALL    STREET 


I 

WALL    STREET 

WHEN  old  Peter  Stuyvesant,  in  1653,  built  his  split  tree-trunk 
of  a  wall  twelve  feet  high,  running  from  river  to  river,  he  had 
in  mind  the  protection  of  a  few  isolated  houses  fronting  a 
parade  ground  guarded  by  sentries:  we  have  the  same  dead  Une  to-day, 
but  it  is  to  keep  out  the  thieves.  The  wall  came  down  in  1699,  and 
then  the  Slave  Market  and  slaughter  houses  followed,  together  with 
all  the  horrors  which  the  broom  of  Municipal  Government  sweeps  be- 
fore it. 

Up  the  street,  on  the  edge  of  the  hill,  old  Trinity  —  arbiter  of  peace 
—  raised  its  front,  its  shadow  falling  on  the  illustrious  dead  who  had 
fashioned  one  phase  of  the  new  out  of  the  old,  and  whose  names  still  tell 
the  story  of  the  past.  Then  the  years  rolled  on,  and  there  came  the  Sub- 
Treasury,  its  own  inherent  dignity  glorified  by  Ward's  statue,  and  then 
along  the  narrow  curb  the  fight  for  place  began.  One  after  another 
huge  structures  of  steel  and  stone  arose;  while  big  swaggering  bullies 
of  buildings  locked  arms  with  the  clouds,  looking  down  boastfully  on 
lesser  folk. 

How  he  would  storm,  that  hot-headed,  irascible,  honest  old  Peter, 
could  he  see  it  all;  and  how  his  old  wooden  leg  would  stamp  up  and 
down  the  asphalt  when  he  found  his  own  stentorian  voice,  which  had 
once  dominated  the  colonies,  drowned  in  the  mighty  surge  and  clash  of 
the  forces  of  to-day:  the  never-ending  roar  of  frenzied  men  bent  on 
gain;  the  rumble  of  wheels  and  clatter  of  hoofs;  the  hum  and  whirr  of 

3 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

countless  machines, —  one  great  united  orchestra  shouting  the  Battle 
Cry  of  the  New  Republic  —  America's  Song  of  Success. 

Out  of  the  din,  overlooking  the  struggle,  are,  here,  and  there 
oases  of  silence,  where  self-contained  men  sit  in  carpeted  offices  behind 
guarded  doors,  armed  with  pens  whose  briefest  tracings  spell  poverty 
or  wealth;  their  fingers  pressing  tiny  buttons  that  sway  the  markets 
of  the  world. 

Hedged  in  but  still  defiant,  the  Old  Church,  undismayed,  fearless, 
guarding  its  dead  —  still  lifts  its  slender  finger  pointing  up  to  God,  its 
chimes  calling  the  people  to  prayer. 

Oft-times,  even  in  the  thick  of  the  fight,  men  listen;  leave  their 
desks  and  within  the  sacred  precincts,  kneel  and  worship.  Then  there 
soars  a  note  of  triumph  that  rises  above  the  tumult  of  gain  and  en- 
deavor,—  a  note  that  lifts  the  struggle  out  of  the  sordid, —  a  note  that 
steadies  and  redeems. 


THE    SKYSCRAPER 


II 

i 

THE    SKYSCRAPER 

THE  Demon  of  Gain  and  Unrest, —  that  ruthless  ogre  which 
recognizes  nothing  but  its  own  interest, —  is  responsible  for 
this,  the  greatest  monstrosity  of  our  time.  No  more  time- 
honored  treasures, —  houses,  churches  and  breathing  spaces.  No 
more  quaint  doorways  and  twisted  iron  railings;  no  more  slanting 
roofs  topped  with  honest  chimneys;  no  more  quiet  back  yards  where  a 
man  could  sit  and  rest.     Out  of  my  way  you  back  numbers! 

So  in  go  the  testing  drills, —  way  down  into  the  earth's  vitals.  Then 
the  blasting  begins.  Never  mind  your  old-fashioned,  rickety  cup- 
boards holding  your  grandmother's  tea-cups  —  lock  them  up  in  the 
cellar  until  I  get  through.  Now  the  caissons  are  sunk  —  big  round  as  a 
ship's  funnel  and  many  times  as  long.  Down  they  go,  slowly  —  slowly 
—  one  foot  at  a  time, —  the  brown  ground-hogs  digging  like  moles  in 
the  foul  air.  A  swarm  of  Titans  rush  in.  Up  go  the  derricks, —  the 
cranes  swing, —  half  a  score  of  engines  vomit  steam  and  smoke.  Then 
huge  beams  of  steel, —  heavy  as  a  bridge-truss  and  as  thick, —  punched 
and  ready,  are  swung  into  place,  and  the  upward  lift  begins.  Up  — 
up  —  up  —  into  the  blue, —  a  gigantic  skeleton  of  steel  over  which  is 
stretched  a  skin  of  stone  punctured  with  a  thousand  browless  eyes. 

When  the  height  is  exhausted, —  that  is,  when  the  limit  of  the 
crime  is  reached  —  the  flat  lid  is  screwed  on;  partitions  are  run,  dividing 
the  open  space  into  cells  for  the  various  bees  who  are  to  toil  inside; 
the  eyes  of  the  windows  are  glazed,  shutting  out  the  air;  below,  in  the 

9 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

bowels  of  the  sub-cellars  huge  fires  are  kindled,  while  here  and  there 
the  express  cars  of  a  score  of  elevators  mount  and  fall. 

Outside  this  prison  of  industry,  the  free;  those  still  uncondemned 
—  look  up  in  wonder. 

And  well  they  may! 

The  vertical  straight  line  is  the  line  of  the  ugly.  The  rectangular 
is  two  of  these  lines  conspiring  to  strangle  beauty.  These  are  funda- 
mental laws  to  the  Demon  —  laws  he  dare  not  ignore.  Build  his 
bee-hive  on  a  curve,  or  a  slant  and  it  would  sag  like  a  battered  basket. 
How  New  York  will  look  when  the  rest  of  our  streets  are  lined  with 
this  "  dry-goods-box-set-up-on-end "  style  of  architecture  with  fronts 
but  so  many  under-done  waffles,  is  a  thought  that  disturbs. 


10 


|Wff'lTJr.^^'"?"''-"A^u.«iML  'miimniw 


THE    BROOKLYN     BRIDGE 


Ill 

THE    BROOKLYN    BRIDGE 

A  GREAT  triumph  this:  the  master-work  of  a  great  archer  who, 
first,  in  thought,  shot  this  bridge  across  the  river;   never  in  the 
thirteen    years  of  work  that  followed,  doubting  his  ability  to 
make  real  his  dream. 

One  wire  at  a  time :  the  first  carried  in  a  rowboat  in  the  hands  of  a 
boy  between  towers  272  feet  above  tide-water,  and  a  mile  or  more 
apart  —  5,268  of  these  threads  of  steel;  each  one  galvanized  and  oil- 
coated,  before  Number  One  of  the  four  huge  cables  was  completed  and 
men  landed  dry  shod  on  the  opposite  bank. 

To-day  the  huge  monster,  both  legs  spread,  carries  on  his  flat 
hands  the  hurrying  millions  of  two  cities,  the  roar  of  their  tumult 
echoing  down  from  mid  air. 

These  giant  engineers  —  men  who  have  defied  the  impossible  —  are 
often  forgotten  in  this  our  day  of  satisfactory  results. 

"Build  me  a  railroad  across  the  Rockies, —  here's  the  money" — 
said  a  capitalist,  and  mountains  were  pierced,  alkali  deserts  crossed, 
subterranean  rivers  caulked  or  syphoned,  and  spider-web  bridges  woven 
above  deadly  ravines.  And  we  lie  in  our  berths,  a  mile  beneath  the 
snow  line  in  our  mad  whirl  to  the  Pacific. 

"Fasten    a    lighthouse    to  a  single  rock  breasting  the  anger  of 
the  Atlantic" — commanded  a  Government;  and  "All's  well,"    rings 
out  from  the  port  watch,  as  Minot's  Ledge  looms  up  out  of  the  fog. 
"Cut  a  continent  in  two"  — read  an  executive  order  —  "so  the 

15 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

ships  may  pass  and  the  West  be  as  the  East"  —  and  the  day  is  already 
set  when  the  eager  hands  of  the  two  oceans  will  be  clasped  in  an  eternal 
embrace. 

Great  men  these, —  and  not  the  least  of  them  Roebling,  the  Bridge 
Builder!  Take  your  hats  off  to  his  memory  the  next  time  you  cross 
his  master-work  in  a  fog,  your  mind  on  some  trip  you  made  in  one 
of  those  big  water-bugs  of  ferry-boats  as  it  crunched  its  way  through 
the  floating  ice, —  the  decks  black  with  anxious  people. 


16 


THE     CITY    HALL 


IV 
THE    CITY    HALL 

HE  has  been  there  since  1810,  this  courtly  old  Gentleman  of  a 
once  famous  School;  a  thoroughbred  to  his  finger  tips, —  or  his 
cornice  line, —  of  which  he  is  especially  proud. 

During  all  that  time  he  has  never  lost  his  dignity  nor  his  fine 
sense  of  the  fitness  of  things.  When  inroads  were  made  upon  his 
preserves  he  did  not  rant :  no  man  of  his  class, —  one  with  the  best 
traditions  of  the  country  behind  him, —  could  so  demean  himself.  To 
the  vulgar  fellow  who  had  insulted  him  by  pre-empting  his  rear  and 
aping  his  style  and  manner,  he  has  kept  his  back  turned  ever  since 
the  very  day  the  ground  was  broken.  Indeed  if  reports  of  the  scandal- 
ous scenes  constantly  enacted  inside  his  enemy's  walls  be  true,  he  has 
doubtless  been  glad  that  he  gave  him  the  cold  shoulder  in  the  very 
beginning. 

His  only  associate  was  an  old  chum  with  whom  he  frequently 
hob-nobbed,  a  weather-beaten  old  fellow  in  ragged  brown  stone  — 
(since  gone  to  his  rest)  —  who  took  care  of  the  Records, —  a  most 
estimable  person  even  if  poor.  Had  not  his  own  coat,  in  his  youth,  been 
lined  with  brown  stone  ?  This  fact,  indeed,  of  which  he  was  never 
ashamed,  had  been  one  of  the  bonds  of  sympathy  between  them. 

Always  the  soul  of  hospitahty,  he  has  in  his  day  opened  his  doors  to 
such  distinguished  men  as  Lafayette,  Edward  VII,  —  then  a  beardless 
stripling, —  Commodore  Perry, —  to  say  nothing  of  such  functions  and 
celebrations  as  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal,  the  laying  of  the  Atlantic 
Cable  and  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  City  Charter. 

21 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

Twice,  too,  have  these  same  doors  been  swathed  in  funereal  black; 
—  once  when  the  great  Martyr,  Abraham  Lincoln  lay  in  State  beneath 
his  roof;  and  again  when  the  author  of  "Home,  Sweet  Home,"  was 
being  borne  to  his  last  resting  place. 

In  late  years  vulgar  parvenues  have  crowded  in,  shutting  out  his 
view,  —  upstarts,  most  of  them,  —  some  as  much  as  twenty  stories  high. 
Once  his  enemy  in  the  rear  —  (for  spite,  no  doubt)  — sent  a  gang  of  min- 
ions to  scrape  his  face  and  sand-paper  his  beautiful  columned  legs,  mak- 
ing gain  out  of  the  sacrilege.  And  yet  he  has  borne  it  all;  he  knew 
time  would  set  him  right, —  and  it  did.  His  old  tea-rose  complexion 
came  back,  and  all  the  dear  lines  of  the  face  we  love  so  well  shone 
with  renewed  lustre. 

Classic  old  thoroughbred  as  he  is,  standard  of  men  and  manners, 
arbiter  of  line  and  guardian  of  the  laws  that  govern  harmony :  —  one 
sorrow  is  his,  one  from  which  he  will  never  recover.  Every  day  he 
must  sit  in  contemplation  of  the  Mullet-esque,  as  set  forth  in  his  op- 
posite neighbor, —  the  General  Post  Office. 

What  the  old  fellow  has  suffered  because  of  this  impudent  up- 
heaval of  stone,  only  those  familiar  with  his  fine  Greek  Soul  fully 
understand. 


oo 


•<»*^, 


CASTLE     GARDEN 


V 
CASTLE    GARDEN 

A  MOST  disreputable  person  on  the  other  hand  is  this  bungalow 
of  a  fort  that  sits  on  the  edge  of  Battery  Park,  as  if  rumin- 
ating on  the  dismal  failure  of  its  life.  In  its  youth  no  one  of  its 
class  was  more  exclusive,  set  apart  as  it  was  from  its  fellows  at  the  end 
of  a  bridge.  It  must  have  sentries  too,  and  a  portcullis; — big  guns, 
and  a  powder  magazine :  —  These  to  defend  the  Cause  to  which  it  had 
pledged  its  most  sacred  honor. 

When  these  appointments  were  discovered  to  be  purely  orna- 
mental,—  the  guns  never  being  fired  except  in  honor  of  the  Owner, — 
the  people  became  contemptuous,  destroyed  the  bridge  and  filled  in 
the  intervening  space.  Then  the  mortars  and  siege  pieces  were 
dragged  out  and  sent  either  to  the  melting  pot  or  to  guard  cast-iron 
dogs  and  lead  dolphins  in  suburban  parks. 

Though  his  friends  stormed  and  raved,  swearing  dreadful  oaths, — 
he  had  to  submit  to  still  another  outrage, —  that  of  having  his  name 
changed  from  Clinton  —  a  most  honorable  patronymic  —  to  Garden, 
—  one  of  new  birth  and,  at  the  time,  of  unknown  origin. 

Then  followed  the  crowning  disgrace; — the  inner  circle  of  the 
fighting  space  was  floored  over;  lights  were  strung;  seats  for  an  or- 
chestra arranged  and  he  was  given  over  for  a  dance  hall. 

When  taunted  for  his  perfidy  he  threw  back  in  the  teeth  of  his 
persecutors  the  excuse  that  many  patriots  had,  under  stress  of  fate, 
exchanged  the  sword  for  the  slipper, —  quoting  any  number  of  French 

27 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

refugees  with  which  the  City  swarmed  and  who,  at  the  moment  were 
cutting  pigeon-wings  for  a  Uving. 

When  the  alterations  were  complete,  his  old  bumptiousness  re- 
turned. He  would  entertain  none  but  the  most  distinguished.  Thus 
it  was  that  Lafayette  received  a  joyous  welcome;  that  Kossuth  was 
able  to  set  three  thousand  people  crazy;  that  opera  stars  could  shine 
for  consecutive  nights,  and  that  one  political  party  in  celebrating  its 
victory  opened  three  pipes  of  wine  and  forty  barrels  of  beer. 

The  one  triumphant  moment  of  his  life,  however,  came  in  1850: — 
one  which  came  near  reinstating  him  in  public  opinion,  and  would  have 
done  so,  had  he  not  been  too  proud  to  acknowledge  his  obligations  to 
Barnum,  that  Prince  of  Showmen.  Never  were  so  many  people  packed 
beneath  his  circular  roof;  mobs  besieging  the  doors;  men  and  women 
pasted  flat  against  the  walls,  —  a  wide,  clear  stage  with  flickering  foot- 
lights awaiting  her  entrance. 

A  curtain  parted  and  she  floated  out  —  slowly  —  gently  —  as  a 
sKaft  of  sunshine  moves,  iflumining  everything  about  it.  Then  a 
mighty  shout  went  up;  roofs  and  walls  crashed  together  in  the  tumult 
of  welcome. 

There  are  a  few  old  fellows  still  above  ground  who  remember  the 
scene  and  who  will  tell  you  how  her  voice  soared  through  the  hushed 
air.  How  like  a  bird  in  flight  it  rose,  quivered  and  rose  again  until 
every  breath  was  held  and  tears  from  hundreds  of  eyes  blurred  the 
vision  of  her  beauty.  Fat  Barnum  pounded  his  white-gloved  hands 
until  he  was  on  the  verge  of  a  collapse,  and  the  house  roared  and 
stamped  for  more,  and  the  place  became  a  bedlam, —  and  so  it  con- 
tinued until  the  curtain  fell. 

For  years  afterward  only  swarms  of  emigrants  —  eight  millions 
of  them, —  made  a  pigeon-roost  of  these  openings, —  alighting  for  a 
day  only  to  spread  their  wings  for  a  second  flight.  Of  their  joys  and 
sorrows  no  record  remains, —  except  the  summing  up  of  the  size  of  the 
flocks  and  the  directions  in  which  they  winged  their  way. 

Should  you,  however,  care  to  revive  one  of  its  old  time  memories, 
sit  down  under  this  same  circular  roof  some  afternoon  when  the  shadows 

28 


CASTLE     GARDEN 

are  lengthening,  and  while  you  walch  the  multi-colored  fish  glide  and 
flash  in  the  old  embrasures,  let  your  imagination  play  over  that  wonder- 
ful night  when  Jenny  Lind  sang  out  of  "a  heart  full  of  goodness,"  and 
if  you  listen  long  enough  you  may,  perchance,  again  catch,  echoing 
through  the  overhead  ratters,  the  cadences  of  the  old  familiar  song 
that  stirred  the  breathless  mob  to  tears :  — 

" there's  no  place  like  home." 


31 


BEHIND     SHINBONE    ALLEY 


VI 
BEHIND    SHINBONE    ALLEY 

THIS  old  mansion  was  built  in  the  days  when  yard  gates  opened 
on  back  alleys;  when  the  owner's  stables  were  on  these  same 
narrow  thoroughfares  and  the  man  of  the  house  could  call  to 
his  coachman  over  the  top  of  his  garden  wall. 

What  painful  scrimmage  was  responsible  for  the  name  of  this 
particular  streetlet  nobody  knows  —  no  one  I  have  yet  asked  —  but 
it  must  have  been  record-making,  for  it  was  Shinbone  Alley  in  the  old 
days,  and  it  is  Shinbone  Alley  now. 

The  Man  on  the  Corner  —  a  garrulous  old  fellow  in  throat  whisk- 
ers, outside  suspenders  and  spectacles,  who  sells  brass  stencil  plates 
to  the  dry-goods  merchants  hereabouts,  for  marking  their  big  packing 
cases,  and  who  has  lived  here  forty  years,  brushed  off  a  low  bench 
with  his  apron  after  I  had  shown  him  my  sketch,  in  which  he  was 
greatly  interested  —  "both  of  us  working  in  black  and  white,"  —  to 
quote  his  exact  words:  The  garrulous  old  man  on  the  corner,  I  say, 
in  answer  to  my  question  as  to  who  occupied  the  old  house  before  the 
steam  pipe  was  run  through  its  roof,  told  me  this  story,  which  you  can 
believe  or  not  as  you  choose. 

"There's  a  mystery  about  it, —  and  it  ain't  all  cleared  up  yet  and 
won't  never  be.  That  small  back  building  you  see  behind  the  wall 
that  looks  as  if  it  was  a  part  of  the  big  house,  is  where  he  lived.  The 
big  front  part  was  then  rented  to  a  paper  concern,  and  that  gate  was 
cut  so  they  could  drive  in  and  out  of  the  yard   with  their  loaded 

35 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

teams.  They  claimed  the  small  building  too,  and  pushed  open  a 
connecting  door  to  see  what  it  looked  like  inside  and  came  bump  up 
against  him  sitting  in  a  chair  reading. 

"  'These  are  my  private  quarters,'  he  said,  reaching  out  for  a  walking 
stick,  'and  I'll  thank  you  to  get  out,  or  I'll  have  you  up  for  damages. 
As  long  as  you  keep  to  your  side  of  the  house  I'm  willing  you  should 
stay,  although  I  don't  get  a  cent  of  the  rent.  If  you  cross  that  door- 
sill  again  I'll  have  you  thrown  in  the  street.  My  lawyer  will  call  on 
you  in  the  morning  and  tell  you  the  rest.' 

"What  happened  nobody  knows,  but  the  next  day  they  boarded 
up  the  door,  and  to  make  sure  papered  it  over  flush  with  the  wall  so 
you  couldn't  tell  there  ever  had  been  a  door.  That's  God's  truth,  for 
my  father  did  the  papering. 

"After  a  while  the  paper  concern  busted,  and  then  the  lawyer  let 
the  big  house  to  a  printer;  and  when  he  quit  a  straw-goods  firm  moved 
in.  None  of  them  knew  anything  about  the  door, —  except  the 
lawyer, —  and  he  never  let  on.  All  this  time  the  strange  man  was 
living  on  the  second  floor  of  the  back  building  —  you  can  see  his 
window  now  if  you  lift  your  head  —  and  came  in  and  out  through  the 
garden  gate  there,  on  the  alley,  which  he  kept  locked.  It's  all  covered 
up  with  play-bills  now,  or  you  could  find  the  old  hinges  and  lock.  When 
anybody  spoke  to  him  he  wouldn't  answer  —  same's  if  he  was  deaf.  Once 
my  ball  went  inside  and  I  shinned  up  over  the  wall  and  dropped  down 
among  the  bushes  and  come  square  on  top  of  him  crouching  down  in  a 
corner  looking  at  me  like  a  cat  ready  to  spring  —  and  his  eyes  like  a 
cat's  too.  I  stood  staring,  and  then  he  crept  out  of  his  corner,  picked 
up  the  ball,  grabbed  my  left  foot  and  h'isted  me  back  over  the  wall. 
And  all  the  time  he  hadn't  spoken  a  word. 

"Funny  thing  was  that  some  days  you  would  see  him  coming  out 
of  the  gate  with  a  bundle  under  his  arm,  looking  like  a  tramp,  and  then 
next  night  you'd  meet  him  rigged  out  in  swell  togs  and  white  choker, 
same's  if  he  was  going  to  a  ball.  He  moved  quick  too, —  one  minute 
he'd  be  turning  the  corner  of  the  alley  and  the  next  he'd  be  gone  — 
like  a  curl  of  smoke. 

36 


BEHIND    SHINBONE    ALLEY 

"Sometimes  the  cops  would  watch  him,  thinl^ing  he  was  up  to 
some  game  —  keeping  a  fence,  or  cracking  a  crib,  or  counterfeiting. 
One  of  the  new  ones, —  just  app'inted, —  reported  to  the  Captain  that 
he  had  seen  him  sneak  in  the  gate  near  daylight  looking  as  if  he  had 
just  stepped  out  of  his  carriage,  and  while  he  stood  wondering  what  he 
was  up  to,  he  was  out  again  in  a  ragged  overcoat  and  an  old  plug  hat 
crammed  down  over  his  ears.  Next  day  word  went  around  that  it  was 
all  right,  no  matter  what  he  did. 

"After  my  father  died  I  took  to  watching  him  from  my  upstairs 
window,  or  hanging  around  the  corner  with  my  eye  up  Shinbone.  I 
always  liked  something  mysterious  and  this  fellow  was  all  that.  Some- 
times there'd  be  a  light  shining  through  his  panes  of  glass  till  most 
morning,  and  then  again  it  would  be  all  dark.  That's  how  I  kept  tabs 
on  him.  One  night  I  see  him  stop  at  the  corner  cake-stand,  wrap 
something  up,  creep  into  Shinbone,  and  then  the  light  flashed  up  and 
was  out  as  quick.  That  was  something  new  —  was  he  going  out 
again?  —  or  was  he  short  of  candles?  You  see  I  was  young  then,  and 
full  of  crazy  ideas,  and  believed  in  bandits  and  ghosts. 

"I  crept  downstairs,  opened  the  door  softly  and  kept  my  eyes  on 
the  gate:  nothing  happened.  Then  an  idea  got  into  my  head: — I'd 
tie  up  his  gate, —  loose-like,  with  a  bit  of  string;  if  he  broke  it  I'd  know. 
Still  nothing  happened.     The  string  held, —  held  for  a  week. 

"The  next  Monday  morning  a  hearse  drove  up  to  the  front  door 
of  the  big  house  on  the  street  side,  and  a  cofTm  went  in.  That  after- 
noon it  came  out  with  him  inside,  and  drove  off  to  Trinity  Churchyard 
where  they  buried  him  close  to  an  old  monument  with  a  Revolutionary 
General's  name  on  it, —  so  the  book-keeper  of  the  straw  goods  firm  told 
me. 

"He  told  me  too  that  the  man's  father,  once  lived  in  the  big  house, 
and  was  a  crank  and  that  he  had  had  a  row  with  him,  and  in  his  will  had 
left  him  the  rear  building  and  his  brother  the  front.  At  that  time  the 
strange  man  was  rich,  and  belonged  to  one  or  two  of  the  swagger  clubs 
up  town.  When  his  money  was  gone  he  came  down  here,  living  on  the 
sly,  his  rich  pals  thinking  he  was  off  shooting,  or  travelling,  or  in  the  coun- 

39 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

try.  When  some  of  them  invited  him  to  dinner,  he'd  put  on  the  only 
decent  suit  of  clothes  he  had,  and  go.  When  he  had  no  invitations  he 
went  hungry.  His  lawyer  had  come  to  see  him  that  same  Monday  morn- 
ing on  some  business,  and  finding  the  gate  was  locked  on  the  inside,  got 
the  book-keeper  to  help  and  the  two  put  their  shoulders  to  the  old 
papered-up  door  and  in  it  went. 

"They  found  him  stone  dead, —  not  a  thing  in  the  room  but  his 
bed  and  his  swell  togs.  These  last  were  carefully  folded  and  laid  on  a 
shelf  with  a  newspaper  over  them.     Everything  else  he  had  pawned." 


40 


ELIZABETH     STREET 


VII 
ELIZABETH    STREET 

ELIZABETH  STREET,  between  Prince  and  Houston,  is  an  ill- 
smelling  thoroughfare,  its  two  gutters  choked  with  crawling  lines 
of  push-carts  piled  high  with  the  things  most  popular  among  the 
inhabitants, —  from  a  yesterday's  fish  to  a  third-hand  suit  of  clothes. 

About  these  portable  junk-shops  swear  and  jabber  samples  of  all 
the  nationalities  of  the  globe,  and  in  as  many  different  tongues,  fight- 
ing every  inch  of  the  way  from  five  cents  down  to  three,  —  their  women 
and  children  blocking  the  doorways,  or  watching  the  conflict  from  the 
windows  and  fire  escapes  above. 

It  is  the  Rialto  of  the  Impoverished,  the  alien  and  the  stranded. 
It  is  also  enormously  picturesque.  Nowhere  else  in  the  great  city  are 
the  costumes  so  foreign  and  varied,  and  the  facial  characteristics  so 
diverse.  Polish  Jews  with  blue-black  beards,  and  keen  terrier  eyes, — 
showing  their  white  teeth  when  they  smile;  Hungarians  in  high  boots 
and  blouses;  Armenians,  Greeks,  Chinamen, —  with  and  without  their 
queues, —  but  wearing  their  embroidered  shoes  and  pajama  coats  with 
loops  and  brass  buttons;  old  women  in  wigs,  a  cheap  jewel  and  band  of 
black  velvet  marking  the  beginning  of  the  part  in  the  hair,  and  now 
and  then  a  girl  in  short  skirt,  long  ear-rings  and  flat  head-dress, —  so 
graceful  and  bewitching  that  your  memory  instantly  reverts  to  the 
gardens  of  Seville  and  Pesth. 

One  looked  over  my  shoulder  as  I  worked, —  it  was  the  luncheon 
hour,  and  she  was  out  for  a  breath  of  fish-laden  air  —  a  girl  of  twenty, 

43 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

with  a  certain  swing  and  nonchalance  about  her  born  of  her  absolute 
belief  in  her  own  compelling  beauty,  an  armor  which  had  never  failed 
in  her  struggle  from  the  curb-stone  up.  She  had  dark  blue  eyes  and 
light,  almost  golden,  hair,  caught  up  in  a  knot  behind,  and  wore  a 
man's  worsted  sweater  stretched  over  her  full  bosom  and  held  around 
her  snug  waist  by  a  cheap  leather  belt.  She  made  paper  flowers,  and 
lived  on  the  top  floor  with  her  mother, —  so  I  was  told  by  the  obliging 
baker  whose  front  stoop  steadied  my  easel,  —  and  who  was  good  enough 
to  keep  the  children,  in  their  eagerness  to  see  my  sketch,  from  crawling 
up  my  legs  and  secreting  themselves  in  my  side  pockets. 

"And  she's  de  best  ever,"  he  added  in  up-to-date  New  Yorkish, — 
"and  dere  ain't  no  funny  business  nor  nothin',  or  somebody'd  be  hol- 
lerin'  fur  an  amb'lance,  and  don't  youse  furgit  it." 

I  agreed  with  him  before  she  had  passed  the  third  push-cart  in  her 
triumphant  march.  The  china  and  tin-ware  vender  made  room  for  her, 
and  so  did  the  button  and  thread-and-needle  fellow,  and  so  did  the  pet- 
ticoat pedler,  each  with  a  word  of  good-natured  chaff.  But  there  was 
no  chucking  her  under  the  chin  or  familiar  nudge  of  the  elbow.  It  was 
the  old  story  of  dominating  maiden-hood ;  another  of  those  indefinable 
barriers  which,  like  gray  hairs  and  baby  fingers,  keep  men  above  the 
level  of  the  beast. 


44 


^^^^.^^m^ms^i^i,,^-^:^^^^ 


CLINTON    COURT 


VIII 
CLINTON    COURT 

THERE  may  be  worm-eaten,  fly-specked  records  hidden  in  some 
old  brass-handled  bureau  drawer  teUing  the  story  of  this  for- 
gotten nook  or  there  may  be,  on  the  walls  of  our  Historical 
Societies,  properly  framed  and  labeled  data  and  maps  showing  why  it 
was  that  this  most  modest,  respectable  court  was  first  elbowed,  and 
then  chucked  neck  and  heels  into  a  corner  to  make  room  for  once 
aristocratic  Eighth  Street, —  but  so  far  I  have  not  seen  them. 

Patchen  Place  and  Milligan  Place,  and  half  a  dozen  others  still 
nurse  their  indignities  and  will  tell  you  how  they  hid  behind  their 
fences  expecting  that  the  upheaval  would  soon  be  over  and  their  rights 
restored,  only  to  find  themselves  hopelessly  side-tracked  and  finan- 
cially ruined. 

But  after  all  what  difference  does  it  make  ?  The  old-time  flavor 
is  still  left  and  so  are  the  queer  steps  that  tell  of  the  myriads  of  passing 
feet,  and  so  too  are  the  queerer  roofs  that  sheltered  them  —  linking  the 
past  with  the  present  and,  almost,  without  a  break;  the  history,  so  to 
speak,  of  a  hundred  years  without  a  single  volume  missing. 

It  was  raining  when  I  first  saw  this  victim  through  the  wooden 
gate  shutting  it  off  from  the  surge  of  the  pavements,  and  began  to  take 
in  its  picturesque  dilapidation.  An  old  black  mammy,  a  shawl  hooded 
over  her  head  and  clothes-pinned  tight  under  her  chin  by  one  skinny 
finger,  was  peering  out  the  first  doorway  on  my  left,  as  I  entered  from 
under  the  spread  legs  of  the  modern  house  fronting  the  street  curb. 

49 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

"You  live  here,  Auntie  ?"  I  called  out.  All  old  black  mammies  are 
"Auntie"  to  me.     I  learned  that  when  I  was  a  boy. 

"Yas,  sir, —  been  yere  more'n  ten  years." 

"Where  were  you  raised  ?"  That's  another  of  my  opening  ques- 
tions when  I  begin  to  make  friends  with  an  old  darky.  I  get  the 
State,  then,  in  which  they  were  born,  and  a  minute  later  the  name  of 
the  old  "Marster"  who  owned  them  or  their  fathers.  She  evidently 
understood, —  had,  no  doubt,  been  asked  that  same  question  before, 
for  she  bridled  up  with :  — 

"I  ain't  none  of  yo'  No'th  Americans:  —  I'm  from  Brazil.  Ain't 
nobody  roun'  yere  like  me  an'  dere's  nothin'  but  colored  people  up- 
stairs and  down  in  every  one  ob  dese  houses,"  and  in  went  her  head  and 
the  door  closed  with  a  bang. 

I  was  glad.  I  had  come  to  make  a  study  of  black  and  white,  and 
the  materials  were  within  reach.  ,  I  passed  her  stone  step,  walked  to 
the  other  end  of  the  court  and  took  in  its  salient  features. 

On  either  side  of  a  short,  narrow  courtyard  sat  a  row  of  low,  two- 
story,  dingy,  soot-begrimed  houses  staring  each  other  out  of  coun- 
tenance,—  a  pasthne  in  which  they  have  indulged  since  the  days  of 
their  youth.  Those  on  the  right  are  served  with  high  wooden  stoops 
and  handrails;  those  on  the  left  have  only  squatty  stone  steps,  the 
door-sills  level  with  the  brick  pavement,  which  explains  at  a  glance 
one  cause  of  their  social  differences.  Climbing  up  each  front,  as  if 
determined  to  be  rid  of  the  intolerable  situation,  fire-escapes  mount 
hand  over  hand,  stopping  now  and  then  at  some  window  to  catch 
their  breath.  Here  and  there  one  more  friendly  than  the  others,  plays 
cats-cradle  with  its  opposite  neighbor  across  the  bricks, —  the  strings 
laden  with  the  week's  wash. 

At  the  farthest  end, —  the  one  opposite  the  street  entrance, —  rises  a 
high  wall,  spitting  steam  through  a  pipe  on  its  top  edge.  This  shuts 
out  most  of  the  light  and  all  of  the  sunshine,  intensifying  the  gloom. 

Not  a  flower  on  any  window  sill;  not  a  green  thing  growing; 
no  trees,  no  shrubs,  no  weeds.  No  bit  of  yellow,  or  red,  or  blue  stop- 
ping a  hole  in  a  broken  sash,  or  draping  a  pane.     Even  the  old  pump 

50 


CLINTON     COURT 

which  has  worked  away  for  half  a  century  is  painted  black,  and  so  is 
the  single  city  gas  lamp;  and  so  are  the  cats  that  slink  in  and  out  — 
(born  that  way, —  not  painted). 

Has  then  the  negro,  when  left  to  himself, —  and  he  is  absolute  in 
Clinton  Court, —  no  sense  of  beauty,  no  love  for  flowers,  no  hunger 
for  color  ?  Rent  the  smallest  room  of  the  dingiest  attic  in  either  row 
to  a  Latin  and  the  first  tomato  can  emptied  would  be  filled  with  a 
geranium.  Why  should  not  the  negro  do  the  same  thing?  He  loves 
music,  the  double-shuffle  and  the  rattle  of  the  dice.  All  require  imag- 
ination. 

I  am  going  again  to  Clinton  Court  when  the  summer  is  at  its  full 
and  watch  the  windows,  and  if  there  is  still  no  sign  of  life  you  scientists 
who  make  a  study  of  such  things  might  better  get  busy.  It  is  a  prob- 
lem worth  the  studying. 


53 


NO.    5     WEST    TWENTY-EIGHTH 
STREET 


IX 

NO.    5     WEST    TWENTY -EIGHTH 
STREET 

YOU  might  think  you  were  in  Venice  within  reach  of  your  gondola. 
Here  on  these  stone  flags  are  Uchen-stained  pozzos;  cracked 
marble  seats;  crouching  lions;  carved  mantles;  soup-bowl-shaped 
fountains  supported  by  tailless  dolphins, —  to  say  nothing  of  Venuses, 
Apollos,  Madonnas  and  Mercuries. 

Up  the  wall  of  the  adjoining  house  an  ambitious  wisteria  worms 
its  way  through  a  wooden  trellis, —  just  as  the  grape  vines  do  in  Italy, 
—  its  leaves  clustered  around  scarred  bas-reliefs,  coats  of  arms,  plaster 
shields,  brackets  and  busts.  All  about  are  rusty  iron  fire-dogs;  iron 
chests  knobbed  with  big-headed  rivets;  pots,  pans,  shovels,  tongs, 
and  the  motley  salvage  of  an  oft-picked  scrap  heap. 

Half  way  into  the  yard  stands  a  low,  squat  building  where  my  lady 
once  k^pt  her  carriage.  This  has  a  wide-open  mouth  of  a  door,  and 
above  it  two  little  twinkling  eyes  of  windows  peeping  over  low  flower 
boxes.  When  the  squatty  little  building  opens  its  mouth  in  a  laugh  — • 
and  it  does  at  the  approach  of  a  customer  —  you  can  see  clear  down  its 
throat  and  as  far  up  as  its  roof  timbers.  Inside,  under  the  rafters, 
against  the  mouldy  walls,  hiding  the  dusty  windows,  are  old  furniture, 
stuffs,  brass,  china  in  and  out  of  cupboards;  miniatures  in  and  out 
of  frames;  prints,  engravings,  autographs  —  one  conglomerate  mass 
of  heterogeneous  matter; —  some  good, —  some  bad  and  some  abomin- 
able,—  but  all  charmingly  arranged  and  all  a  delight  to  the  eye  so  har- 

57 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

monious  is  the  coloring  and  so  restful  and  inviting  the  atmosphere  in 
which  they  are  housed.  Outside  are  plates,  hanging  lamps,  signs, 
tongs,  bellows,  rugs, —  nailed  up,  tied  up,  plastered  up,  hung  on  spikes, 
—  all  ways  and  any  way  so  they'll  stick  tight  and  can  be  seen. 

Again  I  say  I  might  be  within  reach  of  my  gondola.  In  fact  I 
know  just  such  another  place  but  a  stone's  throw  from  the  Grand  Canal 
and  at  the  rear  of  Lady  Layard's  palazzo.  The  difference  is  that 
within  the  City  of  the  Doges  the  antiques,  especially  the  marbles, 
are  carved  in  a  shop  at  the  end  of  the  Campo  and  soaked  in  the  Canal 
over  night,  sometimes  for  weeks,  to  give  them  that  peculiar  XV  Cen- 
tury tone  so  beloved  by  our  connoisseurs.  Here  at  No.  5,  no  such 
doubt  of  their  authenticity  can  arise.  The  Custom  House  certificate 
not  only  proves  it,  but  renders  further  discussion  impossible. 

I  hear  to  my  great  delight  that  this  No,  5  is  tied  up  in  some 
way,  and  that  the  predatory  Skyscraper  is  held  in  abeyance.  It  may 
be  that  there  is  some  flaw  in  the  title;  or  a  defective  will;  or  that  some 
old  skinflint  is  getting  even  with  a  grandson  yet  unborn.  I  sincerely 
hope  all  this,  or  any  part  of  it  is  true.  I  sincerely  hope,  too,  that  the 
troubles  may  continue  indefinitely,  and  that  for  all  time  this,  or  some 
other,  open  air  bric-a-brac  genius  will  here  find  a  resting  place  for  his 
collection.  One  twist  of  your  heel  from  the  crowded  sidewalk  and  you 
are  inside  its  protecting  fence,  and  not  only  inside,  but  away  from  the 
rush  and  rumble,  the  snort  and  chug,  the  cry  of  the  pedler  and  news- 
boy; out  of  sight  too,  of  the  monstrosities  of  modern  architecture  climb- 
ing up  each  other's  backs  on  their  way  to  the  stars. 

Perhaps  the  State  or  City  might  vote  an  appropriation  to  buy  it 
and  keep  it  as  it  is.     Don't  laugh!     Listen: 

In  my  beloved  Venice  there  has  stood  for  two  centuries  on  the 
edge  of  San  Trovaso,  an  old  Squero  where  during  that  time  thousands 
of  gondolas,  barcos  and  lesser  craft  have  been  either  made  new,  re- 
paired or  patched,  inside  and  out.  Back  from  the  water  is  a  rickety 
building,  crooned  over  by  a  tender  old  vine,  cooling  its  parched  sun- 
burnt skin  with  soft  shadows.  Behind  this  is  a  white-washed  wall  and 
against  it  always  one  or  more  adorable  sooty-black  boats, —  often  big 

58 


C:T^r*'-'.^r-T- 


NO.     5    WEST    TWENTY-EIGHTH     STREET 

barcos, —  and  over  all  the  haze  from  the  burning  kettles  drifting  down 
the  lazy  canal.  For  all  these  years  it  has  been  the  Mecca  of  the  lover  of 
the  picturesque  the  world  over,  painters  who  gloat  over  its  every  line, 
curve,  tone  and  shadow  as  they  do  over  the  gold  and  bronze  of  San 
Marco. 

When  its  last  owner  died  a  few  years  ago,  the  big  flour  mill  up  the 
Giudecca  pounced  upon  the  site  for  a  ten-story  barrel  factory.  Then, 
a  howl  of  protest  went  up  that  made  each  member  of  the  Syndic  clap 
his  fingers  to  his  ears  to  save  his  hearing.  The  next  day  eighty  thous- 
and lira  were  handed  over  to  the  heirs. 

It  is  still  a  squero :  my  own  gondola  was  repaired  there  last  summer. 
Not  a  single  thing  has  been  moved,  —  not  even  a  pitch  kettle. 


61 


THE  LITTLE  CHURCH  AROUND  THE 

CORNER 


X 

THE  LITTLE  CHURCH  AROUND  THE 

CORNER 

THIS  patch  of  green  and  flowers  snuggled  close  in  the  arms  of  the 
Great  City,  should  be  holy  ground  to  every  lover  of  the  Arts. 
The  views  of  our  Clergy  are  Ijroader  than  they  were  in  the 
old  days  when  dear  George  Holland  was  laid  away  to  rest.  Those  of 
us  who  knew  him,  and  who  love  his  sons,  still  remember  the  sting  of 
that  direct  slap  in  the  face  when  his  body  was  refused  Christian  burial, 
and  our  indignation  and  subsequent  disgust  when  all  the  facts  became 
known.  Let  our  dear  Joseph  Jefferson  tell  the  story  in  his  own 
words :  — 

"When  George  Holland  died  I  at  once  started  in  quest  of  the 
minister,  taking  one  of  Mr.  Holland's  sons  with  me.  On  arriving  at 
the  house  I  explained  to  the  reverend  gentleman  the  nature  of  my 
visit,  and  arrangements  were  made  for  the  time  and  place  at  which 
the  funeral  was  to  be  held.  Something,  I  can  scarcely  say  what,  gave 
me  the  impression  that  I  had  best  mention  that  Mr.  Holland  was  an 
actor.  I  did  so  in  a  few  words,  and  concluded  by  presuming  that  prob- 
ably this  would  make  no  difference.  I  saw,  however,  by  the  restrained 
manner  of  the  minister  and  an  unmistakeable  change  in  the  expression 
of  his  face,  that  it  would  make,  at  least  to  him,  a  great  deal  of  dif- 
ference. After  some  hesitation  he  said,  that  he  would  be  compelled, 
if  Mr.  Holland  had  been  an  actor,  to  decline  holding  the  service  at  the 
church. 

65 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

"While  his  refusal  to  perform  the  funeral  rites  for  my  old  friend 
would  have  shocked,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  fact  that  it 
was  made  in  the  presence  of  the  dead  man's  son  was  more  painful  than 
I  can  describe.  I  turned  to  look  at  the  youth,  and  saw  that  his  eyes 
were  filled  with  tears.  He  stood  as  one  dazed  with  a  blow  just  realized; 
as  if  he  felt  the  terrible  injustice  of  a  reproach  upon  the  kind  and  loving 
father  who  had  often  kissed  him  in  his  sleep,  and  had  taken  him  on  his 
knee  when  the  boy  was  old  enough  to  know  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
and  told  him  to  grow  up  to  be  an  honest  lad.  I  was  hurt  for  my  young 
friend,  and  indignant  with  the  man, —  too  much  so  to  reply,  and  I  rose 
to  leave  the  room  with  a  mortification  that  I  cannot  remember  to  have 
felt  before  or  since.     I  paused  at  the  door  and  said :  — 

"'Well,  sir,  in  this  dilemma  is  there  no  other  church  to  which  you 
can  direct  me,  from  which  my  friend  can  be  buried  ? ' 

"He  replied  that  —  'There  was  a  little  church  around  the  corner' 
where  I  might  get  it  done, —  to  which  I  answered :  — 

"'Then  if  this  be  so,  God  bless  the  Little  Church  Around  the 
Corner,'  and  so  I  left  the  house." 

And  so  I  say  —  as  we  all  do  —  "  God  bless  the  Little  Church 
Around  the  Corner,"  not  only  for  that  one  Christian  act  but  for  its 
well-merited  rebuke  to  the  hypocrite  and  the  Pharisee  the  world  over. 

I  once  asked  the  distinguished  author  what  he  understood  was 
meant  by  the  term  —  "A  gentleman '?" 

"A  man  who  practices  toleration  and  sympathy,"  he  answered 
quickly,  his  dear  old  face  lighting  up.  "Tolerant  of  the  other  fellow's 
ignorance,  of  his  hatred,  of  his  narrow-mindedness.  Sympathetic  over 
his  sufferings,  his  disappointments  and  his  yielding  to  evil." 

Something  like  this  must  have  been  in  his  mind  when  he  omitted 
from  his  book  the  name  of  the  Reverend  Sir  who  refused  his  dead 
friend  the  services  of  his  church.  Certain  it  is  that  never  had  his  creed 
of  good  manners  been  put  to  a  severer  test. 


66 


THE  GRAND  CANON  OF  THE 
YELLOW 


XI 
THE  GRAND  CANON  OF  THE  YELLOW 

IN  this  narrow  gulch  of  a  street  into  which  the  sun  peeps  timidly  for 
a  brief  space  each  day,  there  is  stored  above  and  beneath  its  asphalt 
wealth  enough  to  pay  the  National  debt. 
Money !     Money  everywhere ! 

In  marble-lined  vaults  under  the  sidewalks;  behind  bronze  doors 
guarded  by  electric  bells;  inside  huge  steel  globes  opened  by  incorrup- 
tible clocks;  in  bars  —  all  one  man  can  lift;  in  bags  —  (that  some  would 
like  to)  —  in  bundles  held  together  by  rubber  bands ;  in  drawers  and 
on  counters,  lying  loose, —  handfuls  of  it.  Here  and  there,  poked  in 
a  pigeon  hole,  are  envelopes  filled  with  slips  of  paper  about  the  size  of 
a  cigar  lighter,  with  one  name  scrawled  on  its  lower  right-hand  corner, 

—  and  another  on  its  back, —  both  good  for  millions. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  Caiion,  under  a  bold  needle  of  steel  destined 
to  prick  the  tallest  cloud  —  (and  did,  until  another  of  white  marble 
with  the  eye  of  a  clock  in  its  point,  looked  down  upon  it  with  contempt) 

—  is  another  rich  vein  of  the  metal.     This  time  it  is  hived  in  tin  boxes, 

—  some  big,  some  little, —  some  absurdly  and  unjustly  small  —  (my 
own  among  them). 

In  these  deep  pockets  neither  sky  nor  sun  is  seen, —  even  the  air 
is  pumped  to  those  who  sit  and  watch. 

Midway  the  gulch,  crowding  close,  squats  the  Meeting  Place  of  the 
Money  Changers,  men  who  have  won  out  and  who,  because  of  their 
triumphant  scores,  are  not  only  umpires  on  the  rules  of  the  game,  but 

71 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

arbiters  of  trade;  moulders  of  the  coin  of  public  opinion  and  self  ap- 
pointed judges  of  the  Laws  of  Supply  and  Demand.  These,  so  to 
speak,  are  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Mine,  who  meet  once  a  month 
at  its  mouth  to  discuss  the  diggings  going  on  under  their  feet. 

A  few  more  old  landmarks  of  buildings  swept  away  —  gashes  in 
the  sky  line  —  and  their  sites  built  upon  to  the  present  height  of  these 
cafions,  shutting  out  our  light  and  air, —  the  only  thing  we  get  for  nothing 
—  and  men  will  have  to  carry  lanterns  in  broad  daylight  to  find  their 
ofTice  doors. 

What  might  possibly  occur  if  this  craze  for  financial  concentration 
in  our  commercial  districts  continues,  can  best  be  answered  by  the  reply 
that  a  distinguished  engineer  once  made  to  me:  — 

"What  might  occur,  you  ask  me  ?  Well,  of  course  that  is  a  matter 
of  figures,  of  displacement,  really,  but  the  probabilities  are  that  if 
some  instantaneous  signal  of  flash  or  sound  should  send  each  occupant 
of  ah  the  buildings  fronting  this  or  any  other  of  our  caiions  flying  panic 
stricken  for  their  lives, —  in  one  minute's  time  the  street  would  be 
packed  solid  with  a  struggling  mass  of  terrified  human  beings,  their 
exit  blocked  by  other  equally  crazed  crowds  from  the  side  streets; 
in  three  minutes  more  the  pack  would  be  immovable  from  slow  suf- 
focation, and  in  five  the  mound  of  bodies  would  be  twenty  feet  high, 
the  life  crushed  out  of  them  by  the  hundreds  who  jumped  from  the 
windows." 

On  thinking  the  matter  over, —  measuring  the  width  of  the  gulch 
and  the  height  of  the  buildings  with  my  eye, —  I  have  about  deter- 
mined to  remove  my  small  tin  box. 


72 


THE    STOCK    EXCHANGE 


XI 1 
THE    STOCK    EXCHANGE 

ONE  pastime  of  the  American  public  is  the  manly  sport  of  throw- 
ing mud.  A  shovelful  of  scandalous  mud, —  a  clean  white 
target  and  many  a  reputable  and  disreputable  citizen  is  having 
the  time  of  his  life. 

We  bespatter  our  philanthropists,  our  statesmen,  merchants,  law- 
yers and  divines.  We  even  villify  our  presidents  —  this  brings  intense 
joy  —  and  we  keep  it  up  long  after  they  are  dead, —  unless  they  hap- 
pen to  be  martyrs, —  when  we  gather  up  the  stones  and  things  we  have 
thrown  at  them  and  erect  monuments  to  their  virtues. 

We  villify  our  art,  our  architecture  —  (I  take  a  hand  in  that  some- 
times myself) —  our  literature,  or  anything  else  about  which  some  one 
has  spoken  a  good  word.  So  constant  have  been  these  assaults  that 
the  sore  spots  on  some  of  our  victims  have  become  callous.  They 
don't  care  any  more,  nor, —  for  that  matter, —  do  we.  There  is  always 
a  fresh  target. 

One  of  the  time  honored  institutions  of  our  land  —  one  which  has 
never  ceased  to  be  the  centre  of  abuse, —  is  the  New  York  Stock  Ex- 
change. Here  conspiracies  arc  organized  for  robbing  the  poor  and 
grinding  the  rich;  so  despicable  and  damnable  that  Society  is  appalled. 
Here  plots  are  hatched  which  will  eventually  destroy  the  Nation,  and 
here  the  Gold  Barons  defraud  the  innocent  and  the  unwary,  by  stock 
issues  based  solely  on  hot  air  and  diluted  water.      Here  senators  are 

77 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

made;  congressmen  debauched  and   judges   instructed;  —  even  plans 
consummated  for  the  seduction  and  capture  of  the  Supreme  Court. 

All  this  is  true  —  absolutely  true  —  you  have  only  to  read  the 
daily  papers  to  be  convinced  of  it. 

There  is  one  thing,  however,  which  you  will  not  find  in  the  daily 
papers.  It  is  not  sufficiently  interesting  to  the  average  reader  who 
needs  his  hourly  thrill. 

And  this  one  thing  is  the  unimpeachable,  clear,  limpid  honesty  of 
its  members. 

When  you  buy  a  house,  even  if  both  parties  sign,  the  agreement 
is  worthless  unless  you  put  up  one  American  dollar  and  get  the  other 
fellow's  receipt  for  it  in  writing.  If  you  buy  a  horse  or  a  cow,  or  any- 
thing else  of  value,  the  same  precaution  is  necessary.  So  too,  if  you 
sign  a  will.  Your  own  word  is  not  good  enough.  You  must  get  two 
others  to  sign  with  you  before  the  Surrogate  is  satisfied. 

None  of  this  in  the  Stock  Exchange.  A  wink,  or  two  fingers  held 
up  is  enough.  Often  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  when  the  floor  of  the 
Exchange  is  a  howling  mob,  when  frenzied  brokers  shout  themselves 
hoarse  and  stocks  are  going  up  and  down  by  leaps  and  bounds,  and 
ruin  or  fortune  is  measured  by  minutes,  the  lifting  of  a  man's  hand 
over  the  heads  of  the  crowd  is  all  that  binds  the  bargain. 

What  may  have  happened  in  the  half  hour's  interim  before  the 
buyer  and  seller  can  compare  and  confirm,  makes  no  difference  in  the 
bargain.  It  may  be  ruin,— possibly  is, —  to  one  or  the  other;  but 
there  is  no  crawling, —  no  equivocation, —  no  saying  you  didn't  under- 
stand,—  or  "I  was  waving  to  the  man  behind  you."  Just  the  plain, 
straight,  unvarnished  truth  —  "Yes,  that's  right, —  send  it  in." 

If  it  be  ruin,  the  loser  empties  out  on  the  table  everything  he  has 
in  his  pockets;  everything  he  has  in  his  bank;  all  his  houses,  lots  and 
securities,  often  his  wife's  jewels,  and  pays  thirty,  forty,  or  seventy 
per  cent.,  —  as  the  case  may  be. 

What  he  has  saved  from  the  wreck  are  his  integrity  and  his  good 
name.  In  this  salvage  lies  the  respect  with  which  his  fellows  hold 
him. 

78 


,■■  .'.m"-"-' /•■■  '^ 


THE     STOCK      EXCHANGE 

Every  hand  is  now  held  out.  He  has  stood  the  test:  —  he  has 
made  good.  Let  him  have  swerved  by  so  much  as  a  hair's  breadth 
and  his  career  in  the  Street  would  have  been  ended. 


81 


THE    UPHEAVAL 


XIII 
THE    UPHEAVAL 

THIS  hole  in  the  ground  —  and  it  is  a  big  one, —  or  was  until 
they  began  to  fill  it  up  with  concrete  and  stone,  furnishes  an 
outdoor  object  lesson  in  the  triumphs  of  skilled  labor. 

Few  of  us  can  see  a  tunnel  being  driven  through  the  heart  of  a 
mountain, —  five  thousand  feet  below  the  glaciers  and  seven  miles  long; 
or  watch  human  spiders  spin  a  web  of  steel  across  a  South  American 
ravine,  its  bottom  blurred  by  millions  of  tons  of  water  churned  into 
mist, —  but  the  units  of  such  deeds  are  here  in  this  hole  on  Fourth 
Avenue. 

The  same  kind  of  men  climb  derricks,  work  the  steam  drills  and 
tend  the  boilers.  The  same  monkeys  in  overalls  spring  from  beams 
twenty  stories  above  the  sidewalk,  or,  pipe  in  mouth,  drop  vertically 
hundreds  of  feet  astride  of  an  empty  bucket.  The  same  silent  lone 
fisherman  of  a  Master  of  Explosives  picks  his  way  in  search  of  drilled 
holes,  his  bait  box  full  of  sticks  of  dynamite  that  would  send  him  to 
Kingdom  Come  if  he  blundered. 

And  then  the  precision  of  it  all:  the  huge  girders  dumped  on  the 
curb  and  chained:  a  wave  of  the  foreman's  hand  and  up  she  goes. 
Another  wave  and  the  boom  is  lowered,  or  raised,  or  swung  to  the  right 
or  the  left.  A  minute  more  and  she  is  in  her  socket,  plumbed  and 
bolted, —  and  so  the  basket-weaving  of  steel  straws  continues.  Even 
while  you  look  —  between  two  suns,  really,  you  can  see  the  structure 
grow.     Out  West  —  a  thousand  miles  west  —  they  are  cutting  the 

85 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

stone,  but  there  will  be  no  chipping  when  it  arrives  and  is  lewised  and 
is  swung  to  the  masons.     Each  piece  fits  —  exactly  fits. 

In  a  few  months  it  will  be  under  roof,  and  before  the  year  is  out 
the  sign  painters  will  be  putting  gold  letters  on  the  window  panes  and 
another  example  of  utilitarian  architecture,  known  as  the  Dry-Goods- 
Box-Set-Up-On-End  Period  will  be  added  to  our  avenue. 

I  am  sorry  —  not  being  in  dry-goods.  I  miss  the  old  corner  with 
its  collection  of  bottomless  haircloth  sofas,  and  three-legged  repairable 
chairs  airing  themselves  in  the  sun  on  the  sidewalk.  I  miss,  too,  their 
owner, —  old  Fay,  Prince  of  bric-a-brac  dealers,  who  would  welcome 
me  between  his  labyrinths  of  colonial  mahogany,  glass,  old  china,  and 
the  scrapings  of  the  country  from  Georgia  to  Cape  Cod.  Even  now  I 
catch  the  pungent  smell  of  his  turpentine  and  varnish,  that  wafted  up 
out  of  the  cellar  opening  on  the  side  street  telling  of  new  lamps  for  old, 
or  the  making  over  of  the  new  into  the  old  —  which  was  quite  the  same 
thing  with  Fay. 

Then  again,  there  are  such  a  lot  of  dry-goods  stores,  and  such  heaps 
of  cottons,  silks,  and  woolens,  and  there  are  so  few  such  old  landmarks 
as  Fay's! 


86 


THE    SUBWAY  — BRIDGE    STATION 


XIV 
THE    SUB  WAY  — BRIDGE    STATION 

ALONG  the  spine  of  the  great  stone  Hzard  known  as  New  York 
City,  and  below  its  man-piled  coverings,  there  lie,  as  we  know, 
many  strange  creatures:  —  deadly  gas  pipes;  bloated  water 
mains  gorged  to  bursting;  huge  pythons,  foul  and  venomous,  fed  by 
carrion,  who  dare  not  face  the  light;  and  close  under  its  skin,  regardless 
of  them  all,  the  Hydra  of  the  Subway  with  its  insatiable  hunger,  its 
hooded  heads  thrust  out  just  above  the  level  of  the  sidewalks  where, 
with  open  mouths  and  blinking  glassy  eyes,  it  awaits  its  prey. 

Singly, —  in  flurries,  in  swarms  they  come,  massing  like  flies,  the 
suction  increasing  as  they  feel  the  snake's  hot  breath  smite  their  faces: 
—  shop  girls,  boys,  old  women,  tired  brokers  grabbing  a  journal  as  they 
are  swept  in  and  down; —  clay-stained  laborers  clutching  empty  dinner 
pails;  women  warm  in  furs;  beggars  cold  in  rags  —  a  moving  mass  of 
all  that  the  great  city  affords  of  poverty,  wealth,  misery  and  work. 

And  so  great  an  appetite  has  this  huge  Saurian  that  three  times 
the  population  of  the  whole  United  States,  including  the  Islands  of  the 
Sea,  were  swallowed  up  and  thrown  out  during  the  past  twelve  months. 
More  marvellous  still  is  this  year's  trafTic;  an  increase  of  seventeen  mil- 
lions over  the  previous  year;  a  sum  equal  to  four  times  the  present 
population  of  the  city  itself. 

Strange  to  say  the  flies  like  it.  They  are  jumbled,  whirled, 
bumped,  banged,  their  bodies  mashed  to  a  pulp,  and  yet  I  repeat, 
they  like  it.     To  their  joy  they  have  saved  six  minutes  and  a  quarter 

91 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

of  their  inexpressibly  valuable  time, —  those  who  live  in  Harlem  have 
saved  nine.  That  they  have  no  particular  use  for  this  increase  of 
wealth,  once  it  is  safely  assured,  makes  no  difference.  They  have 
saved  it.  They  even  gloat  over  it, —  often  boast  of  it,  and  sometimes 
are  extremely  disagreeable  in  their  remarks  towards  those  of  us  who 
would  rather  lose  a  day  or  a  week  than  be  whirled  into  an  early  grave 
in  the  effort  to  cheat  a  clock. 

It  is  the  Imp  of  Hustle, —  first  born  of  the  Demon  of  Hurry,  who  has 
fastened  his  grip  upon  them.  He  it  was  who  made  the  Subway  pos- 
sible, and  then  with  hellish  glee,  made  it  profitable.  He  knew  his  clien- 
tele;—  had  seen  them  grow  up;  had  watched  them  gobble  their 
luncheons  standing;  devour  the  headlines  of  their  morning  and 
afternoon  papers  between  shunts  on  the  elevated;  phonograph  their 
correspondence  for  the  use  of  the  girl  in  the  next  room,  and  run  for 
street  cars.  He  knew  too,  what  would  happen  when  he  pried  open  the 
jaws  of  the  monster  and  bade  them  enter. 

And  the  Imp  made  no  mistake.  Every  day  the  crowd  grows  denser; 
every  hour  the  grip  tightens.  Two  flags  now  wave  over  the  mob,  the 
first  bearing  the  legend: 

"The  survival  of  the  Fittest"  — 
And  the  second  that  of 

"The  Devil  take  the  hindermost." 


92 


MANHATTAN 


XV 
MANHATTAN 

SEEN  by  day  from  the  banks  of  either  river,  it  is  a  city  built  of 
children's  colored  blocks  piled  one  on  top  of  the  other, —  square 
sided,  and  flat-roofed,  with  here  and  there  a  pinnacle  or  cam- 
panile tower  overlooking  the  group, —  the  whole  made  gay  by  little 
puffs  of  feathery  steam  coquetting  in  the  crisp  morning  air. 

On  the  rivers  themselves,  threading  the  currents  like  shuttles  in  a 
tangled  loom,  cross  and  recross  the  ships  of  all  nations  —  Not  ours, — 
the  other  fellows.  Huge  leviathans;  ferry-boats  from  Hoboken  to 
Plymouth;  high-waisted  brigantines  in  from  the  Pacific;  barks,  steam- 
ships; oil  tramps  —  everything  that  floats  carrying  every  known  flag 
but  our  own. 

All  are  welcome.  Hospitality  is  our  strong  point.  In  fact  we 
delight  in  taking  second  place,  or  third, —  or  even  fourth,  if  it  suits 
our  guests  the  better.  "After  you  Alphonse"  should  have  been  in- 
serted in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  to  make  clearer  the  clause 
that  "All  men  are  born  free  and  equal." 

For  since  the  date  of  that  historic  document  we  have  been  keep- 
ing open  house  to  all  the  world.  Last  year  in  Manhattan  alone  we 
welcomed  and  cared  for  nearly  a  milUon  of  these  raw,  untilled,  un- 
lettered and  unkempt  dumpings;  most  of  them  Goths,  Vandals  and 
Barbarians, —  eighty  per  cent,  of  them  at  any  rate.  And  so  enormous 
and  continuous  has  been  the  influx  and  to  such  proportions  has  it  grown 
that  of  our  five  million  of  souls  almost  one-half  are  foreign  born. 

97 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  with  them  comes  the  yeast  of  unrest  —  a 
leaven  that  in  the  older  days  worked  slowly  and  in  moderation,  but 
which  in  these  days  ferments  so  quickly  that  the  only  check  is  the 
mailed  hand  of  the  law.  Indeed  such  gentle  reminders  as  "Pay  what 
we  ask  or  we  blow  up  the  mill,"  backed  by  a  stick  of  dynamite,  and 
"Down  with  your  flag  and  up  with  ours,"  (a  red  one,)  backed  by  a 
dirk,  are  being  heard  in  every  direction. 

And  this  is  not  all.  So  busy  have  we  been  considering  the  comfort 
of  this  influx,  and  so  eager  to  house  them,  that  we  have  ignored  and 
lost  sight  of  the  one  thing  that  other  nations  less  hospitable  than  our- 
selves hold  most  dear  —  the  City  Beautiful.  For  boast  as  we  may, 
Manhattan  is  not  beautiful.  Not  as  Constantinople  is  beautiful  with 
countless  slender  minarets  and  rounded  domes;  its  fringe  of  white 
palaces  bordering  the  blue  waters  of  the  Bosphorus.  Not  as  Venice 
is  beautiful  with  its  marbles  and  bronzes,  and  stretches  of  silver  lagoons 
encircled  by  a  necklace  of  pearls,  each  bead  a  priceless  example  of  the 
art  of  five  centuries :  Manhattan  has  only  its  ugly  pile  of  children's 
blocks. 

No  —  ours  is  not  a  beautiful  city  —  not  by  day. 

But  see  it  by  night! 

When  the  shadows  soften  the  hard  lines  and  the  great  mass  loses 
its  details;  and  houses,  lofts  and  skyscrapers  melt  into  a  purple  grey! 
When  the  glow-worms  light  their  tapers  in  countless  windows;  when 
towers  and  steeples  flash  greetings  each  to  the  other,  and  the  dainty 
bridges  in  webs  of  gossamer  dance  from  shore  to  shore  under  loops  and 
arches  of  light;  when  the  streets  run  molten  gold  and  the  sky  is  decked 
with  miUions  of  jewels. 

Then  Manhattan  rises  in  compelling  glory,  the  most  brilliant,  the 
most  beautiful  and  the  most  inspiring  of  all  the  cities  of  the  earth. 


98 


MADISON     SQUARE 


XVI 
MADISON    SQUARE 

THIS  is  the  Out  Door  Club  of  the  Over  Tired!  No  dues;  no 
complaint-box;  no  cocktail  hour:  Every  seat  free. 
Of  course  a  certain  exclusiveness  prevails  and  extreme  care 
is  always  exercised  by  the  Committee  of  Admissions  that  no  can- 
didate is  elected  unless  the  hall  marks  of  the  fraternity  can  be  found  on 
his  person.  Not  on  his  hands  —  and  never  on  his  palms:  unscarred 
by  toil.  It  is  his  trousers  that  count,  whether  new,  whether  worn  or 
whether  half  soled  —  the  latter  condition  passing  him  with  high  honors 
and  making  him  Hors  Concours  for  ever  after. 

Then  there  follows  a  minor  test  of  the  number  of  hours  he  can 
watch  a  sparrow  hunt  for  a  meal  without  moving  a  muscle,  or  the 
number  of  the  minutes  he  can  sleep  behind  a  last  week's  newspaper, 
the  policeman  on  the  beat  believing  him  to  be  wide  awake,  search- 
ing advertisements  for  work. 

And  they  have  certain  rights  —  these  Knights  of  the  Benches  — 
rights  that  the  ineligible  tax  payer  must  respect.  A  few  years  ago 
there  was  a  revolt  against  their  preemption  of  these  sitting  facilities 
and  several  hundred  sterilized  chairs  were  moved  in  to  be  rented  at  a 
penny  each.  Instantly  the  tocsin  was  sounded,  the  riot  act  read  and 
two  platoons  and  an  ambulance  carted  off  the  broken  heads  and  legs  — 
the  latter  belonging  to  the  chairs.  An  Englishman  from  Hyde  Park 
or  a  Frenchman  from  the  Bois  having  grasped  the  situation  in  its 
entirety,  would  have  laughed  himself  to  the  verge  of  apoplexy  — 

103 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

every  park  in  Europe  being  provided  with  such  chairs  in  addition  to 
the  regular  seats,  but  there  was  no  merriment  among  the  members  of 
the  "Over-Tired."  The  crisis  was  too  serious.  Their  rights  under 
the  Constitution  had  been  violated  —  the  validity  and  power  of  the 
document  itself  imperilled. 

The  discomfited  tax  payer  showed  fight.  This  time  he  was  armed 
with  a  wide  brush  and  a  pot  of  paint  with  which  he  labelled,  "These 
Benches  are  Reserved  for  Women  and  Children." 

"Suits  us  exactly,"  chorused  the  Members,  and  down  they  sat 
and  are  there  still. 

Once  in  a  great  while  some  pale  young  girl  who  has  tramped  from  a 
sweat  shop  over  by  the  river  walks  timidly  past  the  row  of  outstretched 
legs  and  feet  of  the  Over-Tired  to  find  a  vacant  seat.  Then  if  a  guardian 
of  the  law  happens  along  the  nearest  bundle  of  rags  is  brought  to  life 
by  a  tap  on  his  shins  with  a  night  stick  or  he  is  jerked  to  his  feet  by  the 
scruff  of  his  neck  should  he  grumble,  and  the  girl  is  seated  —  but  this 
is  not  often. 

All  these  hideous  vulgarities  however  fade  and  are  forgotten  when 
one  loiters  through  its  mosaic  of  light  and  shade  on  one  of  our  early  spring 
mornings  and  catches  the  shimmer  of  the  new  leaves  bursting  into  song, 
all  their  little  cups  of  green  held  up  to  the  kind  sky  as  if  they  were  offering 
a  libation  to  the  gods  for  being  so  good  to  them.  On  these  mornings 
the  vistas  under  their  branches  are  softened  by  the  intermingling  of  a 
thousand  tones.  Hard  lines  fade,  the  rectangular  and  the  straight  are 
broken  by  waving  branches  giving  you  only  glimpses  here  and  there. 
Stanford's  White's  tower  becomes  a  bit  of  old  Spain  seen  above  the 
orange  grove  in  Seville  and  McKim's  temple  with  its  pillars  and  pedi- 
ment a  part  of  Athens. 

Over  all  is  a  sky  unmatched  in  brilliancy  the  world  over. 


104 


GANSEVOORT    MARKET 


XVII 
GANSEVOORT    MARKET 

WEST  of  its  present  site  there  once  lay  the  Uttle  Indian  village 
of  Sappokanican,  where  in  1609  Hendrick  Hudson  is  said  to 
have  stopped  for  provisions.  Dried  and  fresh  fish,  no  doubt, 
Indian  corn  off  and  on  the  cob,  besides  yams,  venison  and  berries  in 
exchange  for  beads  and  gewgaws:  the  same  kind  of  bargaining  that 
would  go  on  to-day,  the  money  standard  abolished,  and  capons  ex- 
changed for  spring  bonnets. 

Once  a  market  always  a  market,  is  the  record  in  most  of  the  cities 
I  know.  Generally  it  is  found  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  surrounded 
by  scraggly  trees,  and  bare  of  everything  except  a  place  for  carts  and 
booths.  As  the  town  grows,  the  bald  spot  widens,  and  as  the  in- 
habitants become  prosperous  sheds  are  erected,  and  then  bricks  and 
mortar  are  laid.  When  their  wealth  increases  steel  and  concrete  are 
piled  up. 

The  present  market,  by  all  the  laws  of  logic,  should  have  been 
named  after  the  old  village  of  Sappokanican.  Doubtless  it  would  have 
been  had  not  a  slight  unpleasantness  arisen  some  two  hundred  years 
later  (1812),  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  What 
people  ate  and  where  they  bought  it  and  when,  were  questions  of 
secondary  importance.  The  point  was  to  let  the  enemy  go  hungry,  and 
a  fort  was  accordingly  built  on  a  small  tongue  of  land  thrust  out  into 
the  river, —  to  the  right  of  where  the  big  ocean  steamships  now  dis- 
embark freight  and  passengers.     Indians  had  become  back  numbers 

109 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

except  those  on  wheels  outside  of  tobacco  shops,  armed  with  wooden 
tomahawks.  Generals,  however,  were  very  much  to  the  front,  especi- 
ally one  by  the  name  of  Gansevoort,  a  distinguished  officer  in  General 
Washington's  army.  So  the  fort  was  called  by  his  name.  In  1851, 
when  it  was  sent  to  the  scrap  heap  and  the  land  was  filled  in  around  and 
behind  it  and  the  present  market  relocated  and  built,  the  name  of  the 
warlike  gentleman  followed  as  a  matter  of  course,  instead  of  the  more 
euphonious  and  altogether  more  appropriate  one  of  Sappokanican. 

Its  old  traditions  were  revived  at  once,  and  in  the  'fifties  men  and 
women  really  marketed;  the  poor  filling  their  aprons,  the  rich,  accom- 
panied by  their  men  servants,  carrying  big  wicker  baskets  into  which 
fish,  game,  vegetables,  butter  and  eggs  were  carefully  stowed  and 
carried  home  afoot,  as  far  as  Madison  Square  and  beyond. 

In  the  'fifties,  too,  every  good  housewife  considered  it  part  of  her 
duty  to  see  her  meat  properly  cut  and  weighed,  a  difference  of  two  or 
more  cents  on  the  pound  being  of  immense  value  in  her  economies. 
The  progressive  butcher  boy  had  not  yet  begun  his  rounds  at  basement 
doors,  nor  had  the  telephone  simplified  everything  for  her  but  certain 
startling  discrepancies  and  disclosures  at  the  end  of  the  month. 

This,  too,  was  before  the  trade  combinations  of  fishmen,  butchers 
and  green  grocers  made  every  housekeeper's  passbook  common  prop- 
erty at  the  weekly  meetings  of  the  Clan  where  prices  for  the  day  are 
fixed. 

"What  are  you  charging  old  Spondulicks  for  porterhouse?" 

"Thirty-four  cents.     Why?" 

"  Oh !  he  blew  in  here  the  other  day  kicking  at  your  bills  and  wanted 
to  try  me,  so  I  got  to  be  posted." 

It  is  not  the  fault  of  the  Clan,  it  is  ours.  We  have  not  the  time 
to  see  our  meat  weighed,  or  to  pick  out  a  last  week's  cabbage  or  a  this 
year's  chicken  at  Gansevoort  or  any  one  of  the  other  markets  where  the 
open  space  is  filled  with  carts  loaded  with  farm  truck  fresh  from  the 
soil,  free  to  whoever  will  buy,  and  one  third  less  in  price  than  the  Clan 
charges.  It  is  the  inconvenience,  too,  that  counts.  We  dare  not  carry 
too  large  a  basket  in  the  Elevated,  and  none  in  the  Subway,  and  the 

110 


GANSEVOORT    MARKET 

expressman  would  eat  up  the  difference  on  what  we  save  or  what  we 
think  we  save. 

Manhattan  is  blessed  on  two  sides  with  a  marvellous  water  front. 
Every  two  hundred  feet  from  the  Battery  to  Spuyten  Duyvil  there  is  a 
street  running  from  river  to  river.  Some  of  this  water  front  is  pre- 
empted and  out  of  reach.  Much  of  it  can  be  bought.  Were  small 
markets  served  by  boats, —  our  normal  mode  of  carrying  food  products 
—  established  on  both  rivers,  say  at  every  tenth  or  twelfth  street, 
the  Middle  Man  would  be  out  of  business. 


113 


EDGAR    ALLAN     POE'S    HOUSE 
AT    FORDHAM 


115 


XVIII 

EDGAR   ALLAN    POE'S    HOUSE 
AT    FORD HAM 

IT  is  exactly  as  he  left  it:  a  ground  floor  room  and  an  attic  with  a 
box  of  a  kitchen  in  the  rear;  close  to  the  small  windows  looking 
on  the  street  a  scraggly  fence  framing  a  gardCn  no  larger  than  a 
grave  plot,  and  on  the  side  a  narrow  portico  covered  by  a  roof  sup- 
ported on  short  wooden  pillars.  It  may  have  been  painted  since, 
probably  has,  and  here  and  there  a  new  paling  may  have  been  added 
to  the  fence,  but  that  is  about  all.  Everything  else  tells  the  story  of 
its  sad  past,  with  the  helpless  bitter  poverty  of  the  great  poet. 

For  nearly  four  years  he  and  his  frail,  slender  wife,  slept  in  the 
attic  under  the  low  hipped  roof, —  so  low  that  his  beloved  Virginia 
could  hardly  stand  upright  within  its  cramped  walls.  And  in  this  one 
attic  room  she  died. 

During  that  time  all  the  furniture  in  the  house  would  not  have 
made  comfortable  one  half  of  either  of  its  two  rooms.  A  few  oak 
chairs  and  tables,  a  lounge  on  which  his  mother-in-law,  Mrs.  Clemm  — 
"Dear  Muddie,"  — as  he  used  to  call  her,  slept;  a  chair  and  his  desk 
and  their  bed,  with  some  vases  for  flowers,  a  few  trifles  and  a  shelf  for 
his  books  and  manuscripts. 

With  the  gaining  of  the  libel  suit  against  a  contemporary,  who 
had  maligned  him  in  print,  and  the  receipt  of  the  meagre  sum 
awarded  by  the  jury,  a  few  more  necessities  were  added,  among  them 
a  China  checked-matting  to  cover  the  first  floor,  which  "Dear  Muddie" 

117 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

had  always  scrubbed  on  her  knees,  as  she  had  done  similar  floors  in 
their  other  poverty  stricken  dwelling  places. 

When  this  was  spent  the  pinch  again  became  acute  and  the  poor 
fellow  resumed  his  weary  tramp  once  more  to  the  different  oflTices  — 
not  many  of  them  in  those  days  —  1846  to  '49  —  to  sell  the  thoughts 
his  brain  had  coined.  W^hen  his  strength  failed  Mrs.  Clemm  would 
tuck  the  thin  slips  under  her  cloak  and  tramp  for  him.  Sometimes 
there  was  one  meal  a  day  for  the  three, —  sometimes  none, —  "The 
Raven"  bringing  only  ten  dollars,  and  many  of  his  poems  and  criticisms 
less. 

What  this  dear  woman  was  to  them  both  can  best  be  told  in  the 
words  of  N.  P.  WiUis:  "Winter  after  winter,  for  years,  the  most  touch- 
ing sight  to  us,  in  this  whole  city,  has  been  that  tireless  minister 
to  genius,  thinly  and  insufTiciently  clad,  going  from  ofTice  to  oflTice  with  a 
poem,  or  an  article  on  some  literary  subject,  to  sell — sometimes  simply 
pleading  in  a  broken  voice  that  he  was  ill,  and  begging  for  him  — 
mentioning  nothing  but  that  'he  was  ill,'  whatever  might  be  the  reason 
for  his  writing  nothing;  and  never,  amid  all  her  tears  and  recitals  of 
distress,  suffering  one  syllable  to  escape  her  lips  that  could  convey  a 
doubt  of  him,  or  a  complaint,  or  a  lessening  of  pride  in  his  genius  and 
good  intentions." 

How  keen  was  the  suffering  she  tried  to  relieve  is  best  described 
in  Mrs.  Gove's  words  as  quoted  in  Professor  Woodberry's  life  of  the 
poet:  "I  saw  her  (Poe's  wife)  in  her  bed-chamber,"  she  writes;  "every- 
thing here  was  so  neat,  so  purely  clean,  so  scant  and  poverty-stricken, 
that  I  saw  the  poor  sufferer  with  such  a  heartache  as  the  poor  feel  for 
the  poor. 

"There  was  no  clothing  on  the  bed,  which  was  only  straw,  but  a 
snow  white  counterpane  and  sheets.  The  weather  was  cold,  and  the 
sick  lady  had  the  dreadful  chills  that  accompany  the  hectic  fever  of 
consumption.  She  lay  on  the  straw  bed,  wrapped  in  her  husband's 
great-coat,  with  a  large  tortoise-shell  cat  in  her  bosom.  The  wonderful 
cat  seemed  conscious  of  her  great  usefulness.     The  coat  and  the  cat 

'  118 


EDGAR    ALLAN    POE'S    HOUSE    AT    FORD  II  AM 

were  the  sufferer's  only  means  of  warmth,  except  as  her  husband  held 
her  hands,  and  her  mother  her  feet." 

A  short  lime  ago  I  spent  the  afternoon  transferring  the  sad  homely 
lines  of  the  cottage  to  my  canvas.  The  sun  shone  full  upon  it  and  the 
cherry  trees  that  Virginia  loved  were  just  bursting  into  bloom.  Only 
the  dead  stump  of  the  big  one  whose  blossoms  brushed  her  window  is 
left,  but  others  were  near  by,  and  while  I  worked  on,  my  pencil  feel- 
ing its  way  around  the  doorway  and  window  sashes  through  which 
they  so  often  looked;  the  chimney  that  bore  away  the  smoke  of  the 
small  fire  that  warmed  them;  the  old  tired  creaky  porch  which  had 
responded  so  often  to  his  tread,  my  mind  went  over  all  the  man  had 
suiTered,  and  my  soul  rose  in  revolt  against  the  injustice  and  ignorance 
of  those  who  had  made  it  possible. 

And  yet, —  here  is  the  pity  of  it, —  the  same  conditions  exist 
to-day. 

Worse,  really, —  for  in  Poe's  time  merit, —  or  what  was  considered 
merit, —  found  its  way  into  print.  Now  it  must  have,  in  addition, 
the  hall  mark  of  money.  The  most  successful  novel  of  the  past  year, — 
the  author's  first, —  was  hawked  about  for  weeks  and  sold  outright  to 
an  unbelieving  publisher  for  a  few  hundred  dollars.  The  author's 
second  novel  brought  in  as  many  dollars  as  the  other  had  brought  in 
cents,  only  the  begging  was  reversed, —  the  publishers  being  the  men- 
dicants this  time  paying  him  a  living  wage  —  paying  him  his  due. 

All  true,  you  say, —  and  has  been  true  since  the  day  Milton  sold 
"Paradise  Lost"  for  the  price  of  a  week's  board.  And  will  continue  to 
be  true  until  the  end  of  time. 

Yes!  but  shameful  all  the  same.  More  than  shameful,  when 
a  simple  business  letter  of  Poe's  covering  a  page  and  a  half  sold  a 
short  time  since  for  a  thousand  dollars  and  the  original  manuscript 
of  "The  Raven"  for  a  sum  that  would  have  made  him  and  his  dear 
Virginia  comfortable  all  their  days. 


121 


THE    JUMEL    MANSION 


123 


XIX 

THE    JUMEL    MANSION 

STRANGE,  almost  human  things,  are  houses. 
Each  one  is  started  out  in  hfe  with  a  special  purpose;  it  may 
be  the  preservation  of  a  period  of  design;  the  maintenance  of 
a  family's  aristocratic  standard,  or  the  housing  and  protection  of  an 
augmented  offspring.  Then,  like  men,  some  go  to  pieces  from  sheer 
weakness,  some  lose  their  own  identities  in  servility  to  passing  whims, 
while  others,  with  individualities  intact,  keep  their  compelling  dignities 
through  every  change  of  fortune,  triumphant  to  the  end. 

Changes  many  and  well  nigh  overwhelming  has  this  beautiful 
house  endured  in  the  century  and  half  of  its  existence,  and  yet  to-day, 
in  spite  of  all  its  vicissitudes  it  stands  out  as  a  type  of  the  best  that  its 
time  produced.  Its  youth  began  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  when  it  welcomed 
to  its  fireside  the  lovely  Miss  Philipse  who  as  the  American  bride  of 
Colonel  Morris  an  Englishman,  entertained  here  in  stately  fashion 
from  1765  to  1775,  side  by  side  with  their  neighbors,  the  de  Peysters, 
the  de  Lanceys,  the  Bayards,  Van  Courtlands  and  Livingstons.  And 
a  rare  hospitality  it  was,  if  we  are  to  believe  her  contemporaries,  the 
polished  mahogany  deepened  by  the  penetrating  play  of  candle  light 
reflecting  priceless  silver  and  Spode,  the  room  ringing  with  laughter  as 
flashes  of  wit  swept  around  the  table. 

Then  a  shiver  of  anxiety  ran  through  the  country,  stopping  all 
gayeties.  War  was  declared,  and  over  the  very  same  tables  where 
Mistress  Morris  had  spread  her  tea  cups,  maps  were  unrolled,  and  in 

125 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

the  very  library  where  she  had  entertained  her  guests,  grave  men 
planned  campaigns.  General  Washington  had  moved  in,  and  here  he 
stayed  from  September  to  November  16th.  A  short  lived  honor,  for 
the  British,  flushed  with  victory,  seized  the  house  for  their  own  head- 
quarters. 

In  1778  a  Hessian  General  with  his  German  staff  swaggered  through 
the  halls,  and  the  old  house  seemed  determined  to  drink  itself  to  death. 
The  Germans  gone  —  this  was  before  the  literati  of  the  early  Nineteenth 
century  added  their  restraining  influence, —  it  continued  a  downward 
career,  even  to  letting  itself  be  proclaimed  a  public  tavern,  the  sign  of 
the  "Calumet  House,"  swinging  from  its  door.  Every  stage  coach  on 
its  way  between  Albany  and  New  York  stopped  and  made  merry  at 
its  gates.  Sorry  days  these,  bringing  many  a  blush  to  the  cheeks  of 
its  admirers. 

But  the  fine  blood  of  its  ancestry  came  to  its  rescue.  In  1810  the 
Jumels  reclaimed  it.  What  went  on  then  everybody  knows  —  did  at 
the  time  —  or  thought  that  they  did,  which  comes  nearer  the  truth. 
At  any  rate  there  was  a  grand  spring  cleaning:  —  such  a  scrubbing, 
painting  and  glazing  as  the  old  fellow  went  through  had  not  been  known 
in  years.  All  the  old  cronies,  of  recent  days,  were  given  the  cold  shoulder. 
Some  were  turned  out  of  doors.  "Nothing  shall  be  omitted  to  restore 
it  to  its  own  once  proud  estate,"  boasted  the  Frenchman. 

Now  follows  the  period  of  the  raised  dais.  •  W'hat  tales  were  told 
of  it!  Of  postilions  on  the  highroad  as  Madame  Jumel  drove  out  in 
her  yellow  coach;  of  routs  and  bafls;  of  throngs  of  diplomats;  exiled 
royalties;  banished  statesmen,  and  imperialists,  including  the  three 
Bonaparte  brothers,  Louis,  Joseph  and  Jerome.  Last,  came  Madame's 
second  marriage,  to  Aaron  Burr  in  1833,  an  escapade  which  set  every 
tongue  wagging  from  Washington  Heights  to  Bowling  Green. 

Although  an  appreciative  literary  atmosphere  prevailed  recalling 
its  former  days,  and  poets  appeared  where  courtiers  had  flourished,  the 
poverty  of  the  house  was  beginning  to  be  apparent.  It  was  getting 
shabby  and  grey.  Worse  still,  as  time  went  on,  the  polite  world  turned 
its  back,  as  new  faces  were  seen  at  the  windows, —  rather  disreputable 

126 


THE    JUMEL    MANSION 

some  of  them.  Eat,  drink  and  be  merry,  was  now  the  creed,  for  to- 
morrow the  front  porch  will  cave  in,  and  the  old  library  topple  down 
the  hill.     These  were  its  most  disheartening  experiences. 

Ruin  now  marked  it  for  its  own.  Its  days  were  numbered.  Unless 
some  hand  were  held  out,  the  proud  aristocrat  would  collapse.  The 
women  heard  the  cry.  The  Daughters  of  the  Revolution,  rousing 
themselves,  went  to  its  rescue.  The  City  Fathers  listened.  An  appro- 
priation was  made,  and  once  more  its  proud  doors  were  thrown  wide. 

To-day  it  maintains  its  compelling  dignity  and  its  individuality 
intact.     Its  destiny  fulfilled. 


129 


THE    BRONX 


131 


XX 

THE    BRONX 

1KN0W  a  grey-haired  old  lady  who  once  told  me  that  when  she  was 
a  child  her  father  often  took  her  to  see  another  grey-haired  old 
lady  who  owned  a  little  farm  uptown  —  a  long  way  uptown  — 
where  in  a  back  lot  there  was  pastured  a  cow.  One  of  my  old  lady's 
childish  delights  was  a  drink  of  warm  milk  from  this  cow.  The  farm, 
and  the  cow  and  the  old  lady  who  milked  her,  occupied  the  corner  of 
Madison  avenue  and  Twenty-third  street,  the  present  site  of  the  big 
white  marble  tower. 

Several  important  changes  have  taken  place  since  those  days. 
Miles  of  buildings  have  been  constructed;  great  parks  laid  out,  broad 
avenues  cut  —  highways  for  future  millions,  and  bridges  thrown  over 
unfordable  streams. 

In  its  frenzied  eagerness  to  bury  its  teeth  in  everything  within 
sight  the  Great  City  has  here  and  there  run  past  a  quarry  —  as  a  hound 
outruns  a  fox  —  the  game  keeping  low: — a  back  lot  hiding  near  an 
embankment;  a  tired  out  brook  crouching  under  an  abandoned  bridge 
or  some  old  Colonial  house  standing  at  bay,  sheltered  by  a  defective 
title.  The  Bronx  —  or  rather  one  little  patch  of  ground  through  which 
it  runs  —  is  one  of  these :  an  old  meadow  really  lying  between  the  small 
wooden  bridge  and  the  big  new  one  of  cut  stone,  near  the  Botanical 
Gardens.  An  oasis  of  the  long  ago,  is  this  patch  —  all  willows  and  lush 
grasses,  with  big  dock  weeds  flaunting  their  green  flags;  thousands  of 
buttercups  and  daisies;  grass  up  to  your  knees;  and  contemplative 

133 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

frogs  sunning  themselves, —  one  eye  fixed  upon  you  watching  your 
next  move. 

It  is  twenty  years  or  more  since  I  broke  out  into  hyperbole  over 
this  very  oasis  and  from  that  time  down  to  the  present  I  have  never 
ceased  to  sing  its  praises.  And  strange  to  say  in  spite  of  all  the  many 
changes  made  in  its  environment,  my  little  patch  has  been  left  un- 
touched. 

What  it  was  when  I  first  knew  it  can  best  be  told  by  repeating  my 
story  of  its  charms  published  as  far  back  as  1892.  What  it  is  to-day, — • 
(in  1912)  — can  be  seen  in  the  accompanying  sketches.  Wliat  it  will 
look  like  in  another  quarter  of  a  century  when  the  triumphant  city 
crushes  out  its  life,  some  old  lady  of  the  future  —  one  of  the  many 
children  who  to-day  are  gathering  flowers  along  its  brink, —  alone  will 
know. 

"The  Bronx  is  the  forgotten,"!  bubbled  over  in  my  enthusiasm, — 
"the'  over-looked,'  the  'disremembered'  as  the  provincial  puts  it. 
Somebody  may  know  where  it  begins, —  I  do  not.  I  only  know  where 
it  ends.  What  its  early  life  may  be  away  up  near  White  Plains, — 
what  farms  it  waters,  what  dairies  it  cools,  what  herds  it  refreshes,  I 
know  not.  I  only  know  when  I  get  off  at  Woodlawn  —  that  City  of 
the  Silent  —  it  comes  down  from  somewhere  up  above  the  railroad 
station,  and  that  it  'takes  a  header,'  as  the  boys  say,  under  an  old 
mill,  abandoned  long  since,  and  then,  like  another  idler,  goes  singing 
along  through  open  meadows,  and  around  big  trees  and  clumps,  their 
roots  washed  bare,  and  then  over  sandy  stretches  reflecting  the  flurries 
of  yellow  butterflies,  and  then  around  a  great  hfll  and  so  on  down  to 
Laguerre's. 

"I  tell  you  that  in  all  my  wanderings  in  search  of  the  picturesque 
nothing  within  a  day's  journey  is  half  as  charming;  that  its  stretches 
of  meadows,  willow  clumps,  and  tangled  densities  are  as  lovely,  fresh, 
and  as  enticing  as  can  be  found, —  yes,  within  a  thousand  miles  of  your 
door.  The  rocks  arc  encrusted  with  the  thickest  of  moss  and  lichens, — 
grey,  green,  black  and  brilliant  emerald.  That  the  trees  are  superb, — 
its  solitude  and  rest  complete. 

134 


THE    BRONX 

"But  you  must  go  now! 

"Now,  before  the  grip  of  the  Great  City  has  been  fastened  upon  it : 
—  Now,  when  the  tree  lies  as  it  falls;  when  the  violets  bloom  and  are 
there  for  the  picking;  when  the  dogwood  sprinkles  the  bare  branches 
with  white  stars  and  the  scent  of  the  laurel  fills  the  air." 


137 


THE    WILLOWS 


139 


XXI 

THE    WILLOWS 

FOR  half  a  mile  down-stream  there  is  barely  a  current.  Then 
comes  a  break  of  a  dozen  yards  just  below  the  perched-up 
bridge,  and  the  stream  divides,  one  part  rushing  like  a  mill- 
race  and  the  other  spreading  itself  softly  around  the  roots  of  lean- 
ing willows  through  beds  of  water-plants,  and  creeping  under  masses 
of  wild  grapes  and  underbrush.  Below  this  is  a  broad  pasture 
fringed  with  another  and  a  larger  growth  of  willows.  Here  the  weeds 
are  breast  high  and  in  early  autumn  they  burst  into  purple  asters, 
and  white  immortelles,  and  golden  rod,  and  flaming  sumac." 

But  I  repeat,  you  must  go  now. 

You  may  have  but  a  few  months  left,  —  probably  only  days. 
While  I  sat  before  my  easel  the  other  morning,  they  were  burning 
brush  within  sight  of  my  beloved  willows  —  always  a  bad  sign,  meaning 
the  destruction  of  the  old  before  beginning  with  the  new.  The  Evil 
Eye  of  the  Dago  was  already  fixed  on  some  lovely  dead  branches  which 
had  fallen  at  my  feet  from  the  gnarled  trunks  and  were  at  peace  in  the 
lush  grass.  They  will  soon  be  gathered  up;  by  this  time  may-be. 
Then  the  fiend  with  the  shears  will  begin  lopping  off  the  twigs  and 
bent  elbows  of  the  live  branches ;  a  little  truant  stream  —  an  olT-spurt 
of  the  main  brook  which  has  always  had  these  willows  on  its  mind, 
and  has  never  failed  to  water  them,  —  will  be  spanked  by  another 
dago's  shovel  and  sent  home  to  join  its  mother;  and  the  asphalt  man 
will  spread  his  foul-smelling  and  bottomless-pit  compound  in  a  geo- 

141 


CHARCOALS  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  NEW  YORK 

metric  curve;  —  and  there  will  be  oval  or  pie-shaped  beds  of  tulips, 
and  sloping  banks  of  machine-cut  grass  coming  down  to  cement  walks, 
stamped  with  the  name  of  the  contractor  at  frequent  intervals;  and 
exquisite  cast-iron  or  rustic  benches,  also  at  intervals  —  only  not  so 
frequent;  and  last,  and  not  least, —  and  because  of  all  these  modern 
improvements,  there  will  be  heard  the  solemn  tramp  of  the  park  police- 
man in  place  of  the  hundreds  of  birds'  songs  which  to-day  are  filling 
my  branches. 


142 


DOUBLEDAY,    PaGE    &=    COMPANY 

Garden  City,  N.  Y. 


D     000  508  610     3 


PROPERTY  OF 

U:  U.  HUGHES 


